Ciao, tutti! My name is Gabe Gunnink, and I’m excited to take you all along on my trip to southern Italy. But before we get on the plane and fly nine long hours over the Atlantic Ocean, I thought you might like to know who you’re traveling with!
Before I was a European traveler, I was a typical Midwestern boy growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Every Spring Break, my family made the 16-hour drive down to South Carolina. Each summer, we loaded up our trusty camper and embarked on a different road trip in the United States: Colorado, Maine, and Virginia, to name a few. And occasionally we popped up into Canada. But never did we fly over an ocean!
It wasn’t until my sophomore year of college that I traveled beyond North America for the first time. My college offered a semester abroad program in York, England, and it sounded like a good place to start. I still remember seeing the uneven patchwork of green as the plane descended over the British countryside. Even the crooked little fields looked different than the big square plots in the US, and I felt like I was about to enter a magical realm.
It was magical eventually, but it was also frustrating at first. The roads didn’t follow a grid pattern, and I got lost several times.
